


Belisaere Murders

by suspiciousteapot



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Gen, Midsomer Murders AU, Small description of gore, corporate office AU, don't know if that warrants 'Teen' but to be safe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 14:59:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6120094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suspiciousteapot/pseuds/suspiciousteapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>radicalhufflepuff asked: old kingdom au: corporate office </p>
<p>This AU ended up being a bit of an office AU blended with a murder mystery in order to incorporate the Abhorsens. Essentially Touchstone's mother, Ms. King, has been murdered, and DCI Abhorsen & DS Abhorsen are called in to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belisaere Murders

**Author's Note:**

> Characters and whatnot belong to Garth Nix.  
> As always, if you had thoughts while reading, throw them in the comment box below.  
> I may continue this, if there's an interest, so if you'd like me to, then throw me a comment below, or send me an ask on thedisreputableblogger.tumblr.com (under 'send me a message hawk')  
> Thanks for reading!

“Crown Marketing?” Lirael asked, stepping out of the car and looking up at the imposing building. It had been a castle some 200 years ago, but about 70 years ago Ms. King had had it renovated to house her marketing company, which specialized in everything from political campaigns to tourism ads. “You don’t think…” 

“I don’t know.” Sabriel said tersely, “and neither do you. While we are here, Ms. King is - _was_ \- not my mother-in-law, Mr. King is not my husband, and the younger Ms. King is not my daughter. We have to keep our heads on this one as best we can.”

Lirael could see the sorrow etched in her sister’s face despite her words. She knew Sabriel had been close to her mother-in-law, but she said nothing. Sabriel was right. Here, they had to be the Detective Chief Inspector and the Detective Sergeant, not Sabriel and Lirael. 

Lowering the seat to let Dog the sniffer dog out of the back, she quickly locked the car doors, and followed the DCI into the grand office-building.

–

“DCI Abhorsen, DS Abhorsen.” The coroner greeter them as they walked into the spacious office of the head - now ex-head - of the company. Sabriel steeled herself and walked over to the mahogany desk. Ms. King lay slumped over it, throat slashed. The blue-gowned coroner was standing beside the body, studying the wound. 

“Doctor. What have you?”

“She died quickly of blood loss. The carotid was cut. But the wound has some bruising around it, suggesting a blunted weapon.” The coroner paused.

“Yes?” Sabriel prompted.

“There’s markedly less blood here than there should be, and I found some odd traces of something in the wound….it appears to be rock dust.”

Lirael was determinedly looking at the coroner’s face, evidently trying to maintain her composure, though her skin tone suggested she was in danger of fainting or throwing up. She was a fantastic detective, but she had yet to accustom herself to the gore that was part and parcel of the job.

“I’ll have to send it in to the lab to be sure,” the coroner continued, indicating a red-bordered evidence bag with barely-distinguishable rock fragments. “But I’m fairly certain they’ll confirm my findings.”

“Likely a specific murder then, done for something other than personal hate,” Sabriel guessed, as Lirael scribbled the details in her notebook.

“The old story about the Kings’ blood?” Lirael added.

“But that’s just a silly story!” Ellimere exclaimed, ducking under the evidence tape to join her family.

Touchstone stood silently by the door, respecting his wife’s jurisdiction, and surveying the scene with glassy eyes. He met his wife’s eyes, and she shot him a sympathetic look before turning to their daughter.

“Ellimere. This is not your place.” Sabriel said sternly, but gently. She knew Ellimere delt with almost everything by launching herself into action, and she’d been close with her grandmother.

“Well I _am_ here for a reason, actually.” Ellimere said. “I texted the info about the blunt sword to Sam -”

“You did _what?_ ” Sabriel exclaimed.

Lirael, on the other hand, looked curious. Her cousin Sam had recently started his own toy company, and it had expanded rapidly, branched into technology development and replicas of ancient weaponry. She was quite fond of spending time with him... and his business associate and friend, Nicholas.

“He, ah, he had something to say about it?”

“Apparently one of his silly cosplay daggers is missing, the one he made matching the description of the blade in that old family legend of ours.”

“Well that would make sense, given the rock shavings,” Sabriel conceded.

“And the cosplay weapons are always blunted” Lirael added, jotting down a developing hypothesis under her list of evidence.

“There’s something else.” Touchstone said quietly.

They all turned to him “Sanar and Ryelle warned Mother a couple of weeks ago that she was in danger. They said… that she would die if she didn’t leave.”

Ellimere nodded, “I remember that. But Grandmother dismissed the idea. She said they ought to limit their risk analysis to company matters, and not fancy themselves fortune-tellers.”

They all tensed at the recalled insult. It was well known that the Clayr family had a…particular knack for predicting events, thought nobody knew why or how. But then, Touchstone’s mother was known to have a sharp temper, especially under stress.

Just then Dog barked, and then ran away from the corpse, under the tape and nudged past Touchstone. 

They followed her out of the room and through the main office space to an elegant office across the way, where Dog stopped and barked once more. 

The name on the door read Rogir King.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it :)


End file.
